Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Crooks and Liars has posted a video of a Tucker Carlson interview in which Carlson states that evangelicals have been duped by Republican elites.

Here's a quote:

CARLSON: It goes deeper than that though. The deep truth is that the elites in the Republican Party have pure contempt for the evangelicals who put their party in power. Everybody in . . .

MATTHEWS: How do you know that? How do you know that?

CARLSON: Because I know them. Because I grew up with them. Because I live with them. They live on my street. Because I live in Washington, and I know that everybody in our world has contempt for the evangelicals. And the evangelicals know that, and they're beginning to learn that their own leaders sort of look askance at them and don't share their values.

MATTHEWS: So this gay marriage issue and other issues related to the gay lifestyle are simply tools to get elected?

CARLSON: That's exactly right. It's pandering to the base in the most cynical way, and the base is beginning to figure it out.

I could not agree more with Carlson's analysis though my view, evidently as is Carlson's, is anechedotal in nature.

But, there is an interesting chapter in a recent book--"The Truth About Conservative Christians"--by two socialogists, Andrew Greeley (U of Chicago) and Michael Hout (UC Berkeley) entitled "Conservative Christians in American Politics" (for them, they define "conservative" as equivalent to "evangelical").

They conclude: "Clearly, claims that Conservative Prostestants have hijacked the nation's politics [including the Republican Party]are greatly exaggerated. They are only modestly different from Americans of other large religious groups" (p.42). An interesting read...

A person that relinquishes their critical thinking ability to another is not duped. They area either too lazy to think for themselves or too stupid to think for themselves. The sheep being fleeced politically and financially by the Moral Mafia, or Madison Avenue's selling of candidates, have only themselves to blame. Unfortunately they're making the whole world suffer from their laziness and stupidity.

According to that kind of thinking, there's no such thing as a "con artist".

Sad as it sounds, most people are at least occasionally too lazy or just too stupid to do their own thinking. Yes, they do "have only themselves to blame" and are "making the whole world suffer from their laziness and stupidity", but you have to work with what you have, fallable human beings.

The fact that they contribute to their duping does not make them less duped, and blaming them for it doesn't make them less dupable. We need to help them learn to think for themselves, or at least give them critical thinking to relinquish to that is not meant to dupe.